Endoscopic medical procedures have been in use for nearly a century, and are used for a number of procedures such as foreign object removal, ultrasonic imaging, injection therapy, and perhaps most recently for surgical procedures. Endoluminal endoscopic surgery traditionally uses flexible instruments introduced through canals (working channels) in an endoscope to perform a number of procedures, mainly in the peritoneal cavity.
Natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) is a surgical procedure done endoscopically through an incision in tissue (e.g., stomach, colon, vagina, or bladder) accessible via a natural orifice (e.g., mouth, anus, urethra, or vagina) and can be done without external incisions, reducing the risk of infection and speeding recovery. The natural orifice access point, while having many patient benefits, presents challenges for introducing instrumentation through a restrictive lumen size, and when using multiple tools, as typical in many laparoscopic procedures for example, tool triangulation can be difficult.
An alternative to traditional endoscope based techniques is using in vivo robots via a natural orifice approach. These in vivo robots can be fully introduced into the peritoneal cavity. Once inserted, these robots have much more freedom and flexibility, as space constraints and tool triangulation issues are greatly reduced in the insufflated abdominal cavity.
Fully inserting in vivo robots into the body introduces a limitation as they are physically isolated from the medical professionals performing the procedure. Without external incisions, there is also a need for additional functional features, such as workspace lighting, a method of irrigating and evacuating fluids produced during procedures, and any other functionalities commonly associated with traditional endoscopic procedures.
There is a need for an improved material handling system for use with surgical procedures.